WASHINGTON — The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art transferred ownership of 29 Benin bronzes to the National Commission for Museums and Monuments in Nigeria on Tuesday. The bronzes, which were part of the museum’s collection, were stolen from Nigeria during the 1897 British raid on Benin City.
The Smithsonian's Board of Regents voted to return the artifacts in June in keeping with the Smithsonian's new ethical returns policy.
The transfer of ownership was formalized in a ceremony at the National Museum of African Art on Tuesday, Oct. 11. The ceremony was held in conjunction with the National Gallery of Art, which returned the Benin bronze from its collection.
“Not only was returning ownership of these magnificent artifacts to their rightful home the right thing to do, it also demonstrates how we all benefit from cultural institutions making ethical choices,” said Lonnie Bunch, Secretary of the Smithsonian. “Sharing knowledge and stewardship with origin communities will help us better understand and preserve important cultural heritage like the Benin bronzes and illuminate it for future generations in the United States and around the world.”
The return of these Benin Bronzes is the first return under the Smithsonian’s new ethical returns policy. Officials say this policy authorizes Smithsonian museums to return collections to the community of origin based on ethical considerations, such as the manner and circumstances in which the items were originally acquired.
A bronze sculpture of a West African king that had been in the collection of a Rhode Island museum for more than 70 years was among the 31 culturally precious objects that were returned to the Nigerian government on Tuesday.
The Benin Bronzes including a piece called the “Head of a King" or “Oba" from the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, were transferred to the Nigerian National Collections during a ceremony at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.
The repatriation is part of a worldwide movement by cultural institutions to return artifacts that were often stolen during colonial wars. In August, the Horniman Museum and Gardens in London announced that it would transfer a collection of 72 Benin Bronzes to the Nigerian government.
“In 1897 the ‘Head of an Oba' was stolen from the Royal Palace of Oba Ovonranwmen," RISD Museum Interim Director Sarah Ganz Blythe said in a statement. “The RISD Museum has worked with the Nigerian National Commission for Museums and Monuments to repatriate this sculpture to the people of Nigeria where it belongs."
Abba Isa Tijani, director-general of Nigeria's National Commission for Museums and Monuments, hopes the transfer inspires more museums to return African artifacts.
“We hope for great collaborations with these museums and institutions and we have already opened promising discussions with them concerning this," he said in a statement. “The entire world is welcome to join in this new way of doing things. A way free from rancours and misgivings. A way filled with mutual respect.”
The Benin Bronzes were stolen in 1897 when British forces sacked the Benin kingdom, which is now in modern-day Nigeria.
The RISD Museum's piece, believed to date to the 1700s, was a gift from Lucy Truman Aldrich in 1939. It had been acquired in a 1935 sale of objects from the Benin Kingdom from the Knoedler Gallery in New York, the museum said in a statement.
A French customs stamp on the interior suggests that it had been in a French collection. And although the RISD Museum has not been able to trace the piece to a specific French or British collection, it is almost certainly one of the looted objects, the museum said.
The bronze head represents an oba, or king, of the Edo people of Benin, West Africa. The sculptures were commissioned by an incoming king to honor a predecessor, and were placed on ancestral altars in the royal palace, the museum said.
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